Eduleadership
Justin Baeder on principal performance & productivity
Essential iPad Apps for Principals
Sep 1st
I recently described my iPad workflow, and thought I should describe my favorite apps and how they support my work as a school leader. I would appreciate any comments or feedback you have on iPad apps.
I’ve made an effort to describe each major app that I use, with special attention to its usefulness in my work as a school leader. I hope you find my comments helpful in considering how the iPad can support your work.
Mail
Email is increasingly how work is done – especially the work of leadership. I use my iPad to stay abreast of email as it comes in throughout the day, and to respond to email when I’m away from my computer but have my Bluetooth keyboard (see this post).
The iPad’s built-in email app is excellent, and it will probably work with your school or district email system. Check your desktop computer to see the server addresses and account settings, or check with your district tech staff to find out if there are any special settings to use. iPad does not have any special requirements – if you can access your email from your home computer, you can access it on the iPad.
A note about webmail – if you can access your email through a web browser, it might be tempting not to bother setting up the Mail app. However, webmail often lacks important features such as your district address book and the “mark as unread” button. It’s worth the effort to set up Mail to have access to its great features. In addition, other iPad apps need an email account to send files from (as described above), so you’ll want to have the Mail app configured.
iCal
Planning my time and keeping appointments are essential parts of my work as a school leader, so I need a reliable calendar. Paper or a desktop-based calendar will work, but I’ve found it enormously helpful to have a powerful electronic calendar with me at all times.
The iPad’s built-in calendar app is a dream to use. Add new appointments, accept or reject meeting invitations, set reminders (which will turn on your iPad when they pop up), and modify your schedule all from the slick interface. You’ll never go back to a paper calendar again after using iCal.
My secretary can add appointments directly to my calendar through Microsoft Outlook’s designee feature, and they’ll show up automatically in iCal. You can also subscribe to web-based .ical feeds, such as those generated by Google Calendar.
OmniFocus
I need to keep track of countless projects, tasks, ideas, and plans in my work as a principal. I found that if I keep only simple paper-based lists, they get out of control quickly. OmniFocus is my hub for to-do items.
This $40 app is pricey but amazing. If you’ve found that your paper or simple electronic to-do lists get unwieldy after a while, OmniFocus is the solution. Check out this video introduction to this complex but powerful app.
OmniFocus is one of the best-designed iPad apps on the market, and is a joy to use. However, if you’re looking for a simpler (and cheaper) solution, try Things. I haven’t used Things, but I’ve heard good things (ahem) about it.
Whichever to-do app you use, the key is to write ALL of your tasks in it, instead of leaving them scattered across multiple apps.
Evernote
As a principal, I receive a large amount of information that I may need to reference in the future. I have a good paper filing system, but I don’t want to print and manually file anything if I can avoid it.
Evernote is my file cabinet. It will accept text (emailed, pasted, or typed in), photos, and file attachments, and make all of them searchable. For example, if I’m at another school and see a playground rules poster I like, I can take a picture with my phone and email it to Evernote. Searching for “playground” will bring up the photo, because Evernote can actually read text (including handwriting) inside photographs.
Best of all, your data lives on Evernote’s servers, and is instantly synched between your iPad, iPhone, desktop or laptop computer (Windows or Mac), and the web interface. In other words, your reference information is always on hand. If you’re feeling ambitious and have a sheet-fed duplexing scanner, you can even scan your paper files into Evernote and get rid of your file cabinet. There’s also a bookmarklet to clip items you find on the web.
iPad Reading Apps
A note about reading apps: if you need to read something by a specific date (e.g. for a meeting), put it on your calendar or to-do list. Otherwise, you can use the following apps to read material of interest whenever you get a chance.
Instapaper
I believe that leadership is creative work, and creative work requires inspiration and new ideas. Reading is therefore an essential part of the work of leadership, yet we don’t read as much as we should. If you have a pile of unread leadership magazines in your office or home, you know what I mean. When you want to read something (eventually) but don’t have time right now, save it to Instapaper.
Instapaper works best for those moments when you find yourself wanting to read an article, but you realize you aren’t going to have time to finish it without interruption. Instead of printing the article and using the resulting clutter as a reminder to read the article, save the article to Instapaper and read it at your convenience. The typography is the best I’ve ever seen – I’d rather read an article in Instapaper than any other way.
It helps to install the Safari bookmarklet to easily save articles you find online. This will take a minute but it’s worth it.
Most education publications such as EdWeek, Educational Leadership, Phi Delta Kappan, etc. offer their content free online to print subscribers. Since I don’t want a pile of EdWeek papers filling my office or home, I flip through the paper, search for the articles I want to read online, and save them to Instapaper.*
*Instapaper saves public web articles and anything you email to it. For reading material that isn’t already on the public web (e.g. EdWeek articles, which require that you be a logged-in subscriber), you can copy and paste into Evernote, then email the Evernote document to a special Instapaper email address. While this is a bit of a pain, it has the added benefit of giving you a searchable backup copy in Evernote.
iAnnotate PDF Reader
Sometimes you need to read an article more carefully and take notes for later reference. If you’re taking graduate or advanced certification classes, you probably receive plenty of PDFs. While Safari, Mail, and Evernote can all open PDF files, a specialized reader app such as iAnnotate will save your place and let you mark up the article.
iAnnotate’s interface is very easy to learn, and it’s easy to save PDF files to the app. It’s easily worth the $10 price tag.
Again, if you need to read a document by a certain date, I don’t recommend simply saving it to iAnnotate – put it on your calendar or to-do list as well.
Kindle & iBooks
An increasing number of popular and education-related titles are available for Amazon’s Kindle app or the iBooks reading app. Last Spring, I bought a paperback copy of Kim Marshall’s Rethinking Teacher Supervision & Evaluation, but I also clicked the “I want to read this book on Kindle” link on Amazon’s website. A few months later, a Kindle edition was released. It works, and reading on the iPad is much more convenient than reading a paper book.
A little-known feature of the Kindle app is that you can highlight important passages and view a list of all the passages you’ve highlighted, either on the iPad or on Amazon’s website. This is a great way to review what you’ve learned from a book. iBooks has a similar feature.
Explore
The above apps are those I find indispensable and use daily, but I have dozens of other apps that I downloaded just to try or for fun. Don’t be afraid to spend a few dollars trying new apps.
The key, as I said in my iPad workflow article, is to limit the number of apps holding actionable information; otherwise, each new app is simply another place to lose something important.
What apps do you use on the iPad? Are you considering getting an iPad? Let me know what you think.
Essential Email Tips for School Leaders
Aug 28th
Here’s my latest article: Essential Email Tips for School Leaders (PDF)
Quick Tips (Summary):
- Cut down on email by unsubscribing from mailing lists and setting expectations with others.
- Use your mobile phone to keep up with “FYI” messages that require no action or that you can deal with while out and about in your school; keep others marked as unread and deal with them on your computer.
- On your computer, read a message once and deal with it; if necessary, add a task to your to-do list rather than repeatedly marking it as unread.
- Use a text shortcut program to write commonly used phrases more quickly.
- Learn the keyboard shortcuts for your email application, and work on your typing speed.
- Only process your email once or twice a day; close your email program or turn off automatic downloading to avoid distractions.
- Don’t answer email immediately when it comes in; it’s meant to be asynchronous. Strive to answer within a day, but at a time that works for you.
- Save your email to your computer, and make it search-friendly by adding keywords to messages you think you might need to locate later.
- Don’t over-file or create elaborate rules – they only slow you down.
- Set the example in your school by using email to communicate more efficiently.
iPad Workflow for Principals
Aug 26th
Inspired by @webgalpat‘s list of iPad apps and resources for school administrators, I’ve been thinking about how I will use my iPad this school year. I had my iPad for the last few weeks of school last year, but many new apps – and insights about how to best use the device – have entered my repertoire for this coming school year.
Workflow
First, a word about workflow – if you just do discrete things in different apps, your important information will be dispersed among them, and may be hard to keep track of. For example, you don’t want to do great brainstorming in a whiteboard app but then forget to do anything with it. If you have 20 different apps holding your work, it’s easy to forget what you’ve done and where it is.
The key to managing your app workflow is to limit the number of places where actionable information resides. Most apps have a way to email a document either as plain text or as an attachment. Use this feature to send your work to your own email inbox so you can follow up later.
For example, if you do some brainstorming in a whiteboard app, you can email an image of the whiteboard to yourself so you have it in your inbox for later processing.
If you identify action items, add them to your to-do list rather than leave them in another app (see below for my recommended to-do list app).
Core Workflow Apps
Of course, some apps, such as the calendar, are the best repository for their own information, and you’ll have to commit to checking them regularly or setting reminders so you don’t miss anything important. If you find yourself forgetting to check something important (like your calendar for the next day), put a recurring popup reminder on your calendar.
My “repository” apps include:
- OmniFocus – a powerful to-do list manager. If it’s a task or project I’m responsible for, it’s in OmniFocus.
- Mail – the built-in email app on the iPad is excellent. Needless to say, it contains my work email, including any documents that I’ve emailed to myself from other apps.
- iCal – the built-in calendar app on iPad, which syncs with my Outlook/Exchange work calendar and my Mac personal calendar.
If I need to deal with something and it’s not in one of the above apps, I put it on my to-do list or calendar to ensure that I don’t lose it.
Batching
Another key is to batch – to do similar items together in a group. Having similar items in one app – for example, all the EdWeek articles I want to read together in Instapaper – makes it much easier to get everything done quickly, since I’m not switching back and forth between different apps.
Wireless Keyboard
Finally, I highly recommend getting a Bluetooth wireless keyboard. Apple’s model is extremely light and portable, and makes your iPad an excellent replacement for a laptop in meetings, on the road, or in classroom observations. (I don’t recommend the Apple iPad keyboard stand, which isn’t portable.)
I’m getting fairly fast typing on the iPad’s on-screen keyboard, but for extended typing, it’s extremely helpful to have a real keyboard.
I will have more detailed posts on other apps soon, but here’s my advice for now:
1. Limit the number of apps containing actionable information
2. Email yourself or put a to-do item on your list for other information in apps
3. Do similar items together in a batch
4. Get a Bluetooth wireless keyboard
Leadership Uses of Email
Aug 19th
It’s easy for leaders who are deluged by email to see it only as a communication tool or even as a nuisance. What leadership actions can take place effectively over email?
I find myself using email to:
- Delegate
- Inform
- Request
- Monitor
- Celebrate
You?
I’m Busy Thinking
Aug 17th
If you are always stressed and overworked, you won’t have the time or mental bandwidth to do the planning and thinking that effective leadership requires.
But if you are never “busy,” other people will think it’s OK to take your time with whatever they want.
I’m not suggesting that you pretend to look busy or overworked when you aren’t, or that you resist making time for people when that’s what the situation demands. But leadership requires time to think, read, reflect, and plan, and this time is perhaps more valuable than time spent on any other task.
The pressure in the principalship is to be the “fixer,” the all-purpose resolver of problems and situations of every type. And it’s wonderfully rewarding to make a difference in the day-to-day work of the people around you. But the work of leadership is to pay attention to the larger picture, and this requires time.
It might not be acceptable in your organizational culture to hang a sign on your door saying “I’m Busy Thinking – Do Not Disturb.” But it’s OK to close your door and do nothing but think. It’s OK to subtly encourage others to think twice before stopping by to chat about the weather. It’s OK to sit in your office before everyone arrives and not check your email.
Clear your desk, clear your mind, close the door, and think.
Ethical Consulting in Education
Jun 16th
There are hundreds of educational consultants who deliver workshops, training, and professional development for teachers, administrators, and other educators. Anyone who has worked both as a public educator and as a consultant has doubtless felt the tension between working in public service and working for yourself, even if both ultimately benefit students and their learning.
How can you work for yourself, seeking to maximize income and opportunity, while also serving the public good in an ethical way? I believe you can. Here’s how.
1. Give knowledge away.
Educational consultants are different from consultants in other industries, because in education, everyone works for the students. For this reason, it’s unethical to hoard knowledge, to keep good ideas a secret, and to benefit only your paying clients – because students are the real clients. Give away good ideas so they can spread. In the age of the internet, there are really no secrets anyway. You are not in the business of selling information; you’re in the business of helping other professionals change their practice. That’s why you can’t be replaced by a book or a photocopied packet of handouts. Talk, blog, tweet, and share – your work will only become more valuable as you get feedback and gain publicity.
2. Charge what the market will bear.
You may be one of 50 consultants offering professional development on differentiated instruction, and you may charge 10 times as much as others. If you do, and you’re in demand, there must be a reason people value your work so highly. If you choose to work less and spend more time developing your ideas, volunteering, or enjoying your family, it’s OK to make up the difference by charging more per hour or per day. In public education, we’re taught to think that everyone is worth a fixed hourly rate as determined by the district salary schedule, but when you work independently on behalf of students, that’s not the case.
If you are having an impact on the work of other professionals, and they find it worthwhile to pay more than you think you should earn for a day’s work, don’t hesitate. Consultants don’t get paid for each day they work (after all, planning, research, and drumming up business are all work), so it’s essential to charge more per day of consulting work than you’d earn in a day’s work as a full-time employee. Having said that, there’s also nothing wrong with working pro bono for organizations that have found a place in your heart.
3. Don’t BS practitioners.
When you are talking about the work rather than doing the work, it’s easy and tempting to make things sound easier than they are, or to gloss over the concerns and struggles of the people you are trying to help. Instead, listen. Acknowledge that professional practice as an educator is always challenging, and don’t pretend everything is/was always easy for you when working as a school staff member.
What would you add to this list?
Using 43 Folders – But Not For Procrastination
Jun 8th
The “43 Folders” tickler file system is incredibly useful for getting paper that you don’t need to deal with right now out of your sight until the time that you do need to see it.
But there’s one way that it can be used that’s not helpful. I found myself doing this recently and thought I should share my experience.
The 43 folders are designed to hide paper from you until a particular day or until a particular month. It’s kind of a postponement system for physical objects, just like you can hit the snooze bar on your alarm clock and know that ten minutes later, it’s going to go off again. You can take a piece of paper and put it in your tickler file system and know that it will show up again on a certain date.
However, the “snooze bar” approach to using the tickler file system isn’t a good idea. Rather than use it as a snooze bar, you want to use the tickler file system as a way to mail yourself something that you will need at a specific time in the future. You don’t want to use it just as a procrastination tool. You don’t want to use it to pick up a piece of paper and say “I don’t want to deal with this right now; I’m going to deal with it later, so I’ll put it in tomorrow’s folder.”
That is not helpful, because what happens is that it becomes your default response. Your default response for dealing with a piece of paper should be to do what’s on it or to pick a time to do what’s on it and get it done, rather than pick it up, postpone it, pick it up, hit the snooze bar, pick it up, procrastinate. You don’t want to do that over and over and over again or you’ll get tired of seeing the paper and you’ll get a lot more discouraged about actually getting it done.
What you do want to do with the tickler file system is use it for things that you need to see in the future for a reason, not because you don’t want to do them right now, but because seeing that paper in the future is better than seeing it right now.
A great example is a conference flyer. If I get a conference flyer in January for a conference that’s being held in July, I might look at it for a moment, but I’m not going to make a final decision about how I’m going to spend my July in January, knowing that there might be a lot of more important things that might come up – I might be on vacation, etc. I want to weigh that against other information that I know I will have as that time approaches.
So I could put the flyer in my April folder, and look at it on April 1 and say “hey, this looks like a good conference – I think I’ll consider going”, do some more research on it, and keep it in mind as I’m planning my July.
Then, after I do that, I might take that flyer and put it in my June folder and look at it again in June and be able to make a decision. This isn’t procrastination – it’s judicious postponing of something that I’m really not ready to take action on yet for a specific reason. This is much more effective and does not develop the habit of avoiding action when action can be taken; it simply schedules the action for a time in the future when it can be done effectively.
What to Do Every Day
Jun 8th
What’s on your list of things that you need to do every day – things that you hold yourself accountable for getting done – regardless of how the day goes, and regardless of how busy you are? What are the things that you hold yourself accountable for doing every single day?
I have three things on the list right now, and I can’t say that I’ve gotten to the point where I’m consistently getting them all done.
The first is to journal, to do some reflective writing, thinking about my school, thinking about what it needs, thinking about what my staff needs, and what I need to do to be a better leader. Journaling every day is at the top of my list.
The second thing that I believe I need to do is provide feedback to two teachers. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s not a goal that I consistently meet, and by focusing on that target, I can shape my practice in order to make that possible. So observing and providing feedback of some type to two teachers per day is my second goal.
The third thing that’s on my list is getting my inboxes empty. Looking at all of my different in-baskets – the one on my desk for paper, my email, my voicemail, and my “to do” list inbox (yes, it has its own inbox) – I want to get all of them checked and sorted and emptied. It’s not that I will actually do all the work in those inboxes, but I will get them empty so that I know what’s in them and have everything organized and put into a place where I can deal with it effectively later.
What would be on your list of things that you have to do every day? It needs to be a short list. I don’t think we can effectively hold ourselves accountable for doing 17 different things in a day and have any kind of success.
But I think that there are things that we, as leaders, need to develop as a practice and the only way to develop a habit is to do it consistently until you do it automatically.
What goes on your list of the things that you need to do every day?
What It Takes Emotionally
May 25th
Being a high-performance administrator requires sensitivity as well as emotional endurance and toughness.
It takes endurance to make it through a long week and keep other people motivated and keep yourself from becoming a negative force in your school’s climate.
It takes toughness to say the hard things that need to be said and to hear the hard things that will be sent to you.
Being a high-performance administrator is difficult work and it requires that we take care of ourselves emotionally, that we have ways to recharge, and that we do not derive too much of our self-esteem from how people treat us.
Why We Can Procrastinate and Still Succeed
May 11th
Have you ever put off a major project until the last minute, then pounded through it in no time flat, with no loss in the quality of the final product? Have you ever told yourself to space out a large series of tasks so you don’t have to them all at once, but then procrastinated, and yet still successfully done them all at once?
I’m working on staff evaluations now, and while I’m on track to finish them in plenty of time, it occurred to me today why procrastination doesn’t always lead to failure – why we can wait until impossibly late in the game and get incredible work done in a short time.
In a word, batching.
When it’s two hours before your deadline and you have to write the paper, complete the report, develop the presentation – there is no time for distractions, no time for multi-tasking, no time for shifting gears as you jump from project to project. You focus, and you get it done.
But it’s not just the power of focus that enables you to accomplish so much in so little time. It’s also the reduced friction of switching from one thing to another. I wrote five evaluations today, probably in less time total than it would have taken me to write them individually if I’d spread them out over a number of days. The skill set and criteria for writing evaluations are fresh in my mind, and I don’t have to mentally re-tool each time I start on a new evaluation.
Read more about why batching works
